This is my house. This is how I live. If she doesn’t like it, she can catch the next bus. I took down the ship’s log book and brought it up to date, complete with the bizarre details of last night, but omitting the intimate parts along with whatever suspicions I had. Suspicions, of what? I had stopped trying to figure her out. And yet…
There is no feeling like running before the wind on blue water amongst lush green islands under a perfectly clear and cloudless sky. Mariah was intense in her helmsmanship, seated astride the gearbox, one foot braced to starboard, eyes scanning the sails for riffles, hands delicately guiding the wheel between her legs. Sorry, I should explain. The ship's wheel on this boat is set into a box at the stern of the cockpit. The steering shaft goes backward into the box to run a worm gear mechanism on the rudder. To steer, you sit astride the box and move the wheel by its spokes in front of you... really a very comfortable arrangement. But for a single, young sailor to watch a young woman in high-cut denim shorts perform this task makes memories that disturb a good night’s sleep.
"I'll take her for awhile, if you don't mind," I said at last. When I reached over to take the wheel from her, she put an arm around me, and then the other under my T-shirt in a strong hug, with a deep kiss, whispered into my ear. "I love your boat, Ian Dunn."
"Mind if I go forward?" she said.
"Not at all. Mi casa su casa. Only one rule. Don't fall off." She smiled.
She stood, peeled off her t-shirt and threw it into the cabin. Then she gingerly walked her way to the foredeck and, from there, worked her way out onto the end of the bowsprit. This is no easy task on this boat. The sloop is 29 feet long on deck, but that doesn't count the 5-foot-long spar poking out of the bow that holds the jib stay. Without hesitation, Mariah walked the bobbing six inch-diameter pole like we were standing still, until she was perched on the last six inches, leaning back against the jibstay, swaying with the boat, taking the spray. No vessel ever had a lovelier figurehead. She must have stood there for a half an hour. At one point, a large power boat heading eastbound came down the passage. I saw him cut power and veer our way. Three men on the bridge grabbed binoculars, no doubt trying to get a good view of my bowsprit's tits. I waved, as though this happens every day; they waved in salute to their lost youth and soon we were alone again.
In time, she made her way back from the front porch and said, "That was fantastic. I could have stayed up there all day. But I'm a little tired... was out late last night with some horny sailor. I'm just gonna lie down here for awhile. Don't mind me." She doffed the jeans and spread a towel on the starboard cockpit cushion, the low side, stretched onto her stomach and fell asleep. I engaged the self-steering vane and gave it a minute to get used to the course, then went down below to find some sun cream, a fragrant SPF 15. I drizzled a white squiggly line of the stuff down the middle of her back. She startled for a second, and then settled back, smiling. I worked the cream around with my best Shia-tsu massage techniques, loosening the knots in her shoulders, racing down her back, a light massage of the buttocks and legs. There. She could cook all day if she wanted to. I found a book and settled against the deckhouse. Here we are, sailing along at fine speed, the boat is doing the work, the scenery is delicious all around. This must be heaven.
Gradually, though, I noticed we were veering off course, a little too close to the islands on the south side of the passage. There is a healthy current here, I noted. As we neared Norman Island, I disengaged the steering vane and once more took the helm. We were nearly back on course when Mariah stirred. She lifted her head sleepily, "How long have I been out?"
"Only a couple of hours,"
"Oh. I needed that," she said, yawning. She got up on all fours then and made her way around my back. She sat behind me, curled her legs into my lap, with her arms around my chest and her face lying on my shoulder blade, she said nothing for a long time. I could feel the press of her breasts and the heat of her through my back. I massaged her foot with my free hand.
"Ian," she said. "How do you make this thing steer itself?"
"With that vane behind you. Why?"
"Because I want to pay for my passage now. Now. And there's only one course I want to be on your mind."
"No way,” I replied. “Any sailor worth his salt can steer and screw at the same time."
"Oh yeah, let's see." She tugged at my shorts playfully. I simply stood and they dropped to the cockpit sole. She swung around and sat in my lap, facing me, her legs wrapped around my waist. I took my hands off the wheel to caress the cornucopia in front of me, but the boat started to veer. I tried steering with my feet, but with her playfully wriggling in my lap, they wouldn't stay still.
"Hang on," I said at last, a little irritated. I leaned back and pulled the line to engage the self-steering gear. At that point, I didn't care if Andromeda steered herself into oblivion. I was about to be busy.
And then we felt the rain. A couple of big drops thumping on the deck, then a few more spattering the sails, and then on us, warm, driving rain, coming down in sheets, the "noon shower," of the tropics. Mariah turned her face to the sky and laughed a hysterically happy laugh as though she were now truly one with nature, naked, raw, and pure, cleansed by the heavens. She looked at me suddenly, then, and said, "Soap."
"Soap?"
"Soap, you filthy male," she shouted through the torrent. This shower isn't going to last forever!"
I pointed to the port cockpit locker. "In there." She scrambled off my lap, found the soap, took my hand and pulled me toward her. The boat rocked in the waves, going nowhere as the rain had killed the wind. The sails hung slack; the main boom swung free.
She handed me the bar and shouted, "You do me and I'll do you." And the next thing I knew, she was rubbing well-lathered hands all over my body, quickly, roughly. I did the same to her, dwelling on those places where slippery hands and soft flesh make music together. Somewhere along the line, we got the giggles and could not stop laughing. It must have looked funny to that eye in the sky to see two grown human beings working feverishly in the warm rain, but this is often how people on boats often get clean in the Virgin Islands.
We hugged and kissed and caressed each other as the rain rinsed the suds away and finally just clung together until the giggles subsided. And then, as quickly as it came, the rain was over. The sun beamed through just as the last drops fell and we squinted at the freshly laundered world around us. The wind picked up once again and we started to move.
That was the beginning of the end.
I have tried in my mind a thousand times to reconstruct what happened next. There was a lurch... the swirl of an odd current, a gust of wind. I'm not sure. Somehow, Mariah knocked the helm to port. The boat spun. I turned around just in time to see 100 pounds of varnished main boom swinging at me only inches from my forehead, and then the world went black. I have dreams about jib sheets being deftly looped about winches, my ship bounding through the sea to the will of a new master, and a dark-haired girl with stony face jutting into the wind, hair flying, a line in one hand, the other skillfully at the helm.
I awoke on the platform bed in the grotto with my whole head in a tortured pain, as though caught in the jaws of a vise. Yes, Virginia, there are things worse than death. It took my breath away. A cold cloth lay on my forehead, but even without touching it, I knew there was an immense knot on my skull. I dare not open my eyes, for the inflow of light will kill me. Suddenly there is a warm hand on my cheek. And a voice. "It's okay, Ian. You'll be fine." A fragment of memory popped from the searing pain. "My boat. Where is my boat?"
"It is well. It's here," the voice said. "All’s well. Relax. Try to sleep." One cloth was taken off and a cooler one replaced it.
"Tylenol," I whispered. "Ship's kit. Get it. Will help the pain."
"I shall, Ian. I shall. You relax." I must have dozed because when I stirred again, the pain had changed from deadly to mere
ly vicious. I slowly opened my eyes and let them adjust to the candle light; I could see only black outside the cave mouth. Night. Which night? How many nights? How did I?.. oh yeah, the boom. Ka-boom. Mariah was there. "Nice to see you up again," she said. "Come on. Sit up. You'll feel better." She grabbed my wrist and I grabbed hers. She tugged, I rose up, she stuffed something behind me and I was sitting up in bed. The pain was less. "You asked for aTylenol about six hours ago. Want it now?"
"Please." I took the two caplets with an entire goblet of water. "Oh, that's better. Mariah, how did I get here?"
"I brought us here. It was faster to get here than Road Town or Cruz Bay. You were hurt pretty badly."
"You sailed us?"
"Of course. The steering vane helped. Let me keep wet cloths on that head."
"How long..."
"We've been back since last night, so you've been out a... day and a half. Hungry? I've got some soup."
"Mmm. Thanks." I don't remember what kind of soup it was, for I was puzzled. "What route did you take back?"
"Why do you ask so many questions?"
"It's important to me. What route did you take back?"
"Well, I turned round toward Tortola, as close to the wind as the boat would go, which isn't very close, by the way.